The fight entered its middle phase as an attrition contest.
Cullen radiating cold outward from his body, following Velis's position, maintaining proximity. Velis splitting sections to avoid contact, abandoning what got caught, reassembling from what remained. The ambient cold accumulating on whatever sections stayed within range long enough to receive it.
Velis had lost the right arm in the first exchange.
He lost a left hand in the second—Cullen's cold field reaching it during a close-range reassembly, the hand surface taking enough ambient cold to begin surface-level freezing before Velis abandoned it. Another section on the arena floor.
He lost the lower left leg in the third exchange—a section he had been using for footwork, detached and reattached repeatedly, caught during a reattachment when Cullen was close enough for the ambient field to reach the connection point.
Three sections gone.
